


I'll Meet You On The Way Down

by Huggle



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Clint Needs a Hug, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Phil Coulson, Ten in Ten Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's used to being pushed over the edge.  It isn't the first time, but they're always there to grab hold of him before he falls too far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Meet You On The Way Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the Avenger Kink Meme.

The trick is never to do what is expected of you. So once the helicopter returns them both to the FOB, and a Globemaster roars its way across the time zones to see them safely back to the US, Clint sits through a three hour debriefing without once raising his voice.

He endures the medical and then takes a cab back to Avengers Tower.

JARVIS greets him with an enquiry as to his wellbeing and a status update on the location of the rest of the team. If he were human, Clint would accuse him of glee as the AI informs on what the others have been up to in the past four days, namely that Thor has gotten himself barred from Macy’s again. 

Pepper would like to speak to him about that at his earliest opportunity.

He goes to his quarters, changes into sweats, and then runs.

He runs until he hits the park and then he runs some more, pounding along the paths, by the lake, through the tunnels and then in among the trees. He runs until his legs burn and then turn to jelly. He pushes through that, and runs some more. 

He only stops when sweat drips into his eyes, and the weariness makes him clumsy, which causes him to lose his footing on the way down a grassy incline.

He tumbles over and by the time he manages to stop himself, his right knee is a torn bloody mess and the grazes on his hands sting like he’s rubbed vinegar over the abraded skin.

And Coulson is just standing there, looking down at him. Waiting.

He can’t run anymore, not today.

::::

Natasha brings tea. Hot. Sweet. Chocolate she pilfered from Tony’s room. She takes a hoodie and a fresh pair of sweatpants from the closet and leaves them out on the bed.

Coulson pulls up a chair in front of the counter Clint’s sitting on. He carefully tweezes gravel and fragments of tree bark and whatever else is sticking out of Clint’s knee. He cleans the wound carefully, thoroughly, and Clint would like to say he feels it.

He’d like to say he feels anything just then.

Once it’s dressed, Coulson holds out a hand. Clint takes it, lets the older man help him down. He stands there, silently, while Coulson strips him.

Natasha hands over his fresh clothes and Coulson dresses him again.

Clint offers no opposition as they guide him under the covers. Natasha gets in with him, and arranges him until she can get comfortable – tucked under his arm, head resting on his shoulder.

Coulson sits on top of the covers with his back against the headboard. His impeccably pressed suit is getting creases. He works his way through a report on his iPad, and Clint can read from how he holds it, the subtle change in his breathing, that the contents aren’t pleasing but not so terrible as to prompt a bad tempered cussing phone call from Nick Fury.

All the same he takes Coulson’s hand. Intertwines their fingers.

Coulson squeezes lightly, a barely there pressure that lies heavy over him all the same.

It’s a welcome weight, and he lets the warmth of it, of them, ease him under at last.


End file.
